Working together with del.icio.us

deliciousWhat is it?

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website — the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too.

Big deal. I already have Favorites.

On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.

Tags? I don’t get.

Tags are one-word descriptors that you can assign to your bookmarks on del.icio.us to help you organize and remember them. Tags are a little bit like keywords, but they’re chosen by you, and they do not form a hierarchy. You can assign as many tags to a bookmark as you like and rename or delete the tags later. So, tagging can be a lot easier and more flexible than fitting your information into preconceived categories or folders.

Some neat ways to use tags

Could I use this with students?

Friends, coworkers, and other groups can use a shared account, special tag, or their del.icio.us networks to collect and organize bookmarks that are relevant — and useful — to the entire group.

Let’s say I wanted my students to work together to find information on light bulbs. Each student could tag links with the same tag, let’s say “EHS-lights”.

Now we have a way to share all the links when we visit: http://del.icio.us/tag/EHS-lights.

Get started with del.icio.us today